Obama: 80% of the people want some tax hikes

posted at 2:10 pm on July 15, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama tried to claim ownership of the mighty middle in today’s press conference while casting opposition on both ends as extreme. In response to a question from Chuck Todd, Obama said that 80% of Americans support his “balanced approach” to deficit reduction and the debt-ceiling increase. But is this really true? Via RCP:

“The American people are sold,” President Obama said.

“The American people are sold, I just want to repeat that.”

“You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically.”

Frankly, it appears that the problem is that members of the West Wing can’t do math. The latest national survey on the topic came from Gallup, which expressed some support for the “balanced” approach, but hardly showed 80% of Americans backing tax hikes — excuse me, “revenue increases.”

Americans’ preferences for deficit reduction clearly favor spending cuts to tax increases, but most Americans favor a mix of the two approaches. Twenty percent favor an approach that relies only on spending cuts and 4% favor an approach that uses tax increases alone.

That puts 76%, not 80%, somewhere in between the two points. But Gallup breaks this out more effectively:

Only/Mostly with spending cuts: 50%

Only/Mostly with tax increases: 11%

Only 32% prefer a balance between spending cuts and tax increases, which added to the bottom option would still tilt the public far more in favor of spending cuts, 50/43. Among independents — the most non-ideological group possible in this survey — it’s 51/41, a wider split. This is hardly a public that is “sold, sold!” on tax hikes.

And that’s just in the Gallup poll. Two months ago, The Hill conducted its own poll that showed opposition to tax hikes at 45%, with only 13% favoring an even split between tax hikes and spending cuts to solve the deficit problem, with another 11% supporting a 2/1 split for spending cuts to tax hikes, and 15% for a 3/1 split. Even under the most liberal (pun intended) definition of “balanced,” only 39% in that poll opted for the idea.

Obama has fallen very clearly out of step with the American public on spending and taxes, and the 80% remark just demonstrates his cluelessness.

I bet if someone did a poll asking people if their taxes remained the same or went lower while everyone else’s went up over 90% would approve. And this pinhead would claim that as public support for his disastrous policies.

He and his can not do math, can’t spell, can’t speak. They are clueless on the economy, how jobs are created…all they know is how socialism/communism makes sheeple who’ll vote for all around destruction.

Vote them back in and suffer fools. You deserve no less, nor does yer progeny.

Boehner should pass a bill, or at least a “Sense of the House” resolution, instructing the treasury to be prepared to implement a plan like Steve King’s and Toomey’s, which ensures that the government won’t default or stop payment on important entitlement checks like SS and military pay.

No he didn’t lie so don’t worry, you haven’t been victimized. There are many polls and when you ask specifically about higher taxes on the wealthy, 72% of all respondents support such a measure. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say another 8% of the population support other forms of new revenue, whether that’s in taxes or from another source.

How come the price we have to pay for the Democrats to agree to stop spending huge amounts of our money is to give them more of our money? This is pure extortion. Give us more money or we’ll keep spending without restraint. WTF?

There is no moral equivalence between spending cuts and tax hikes. One saves the American people money and the other costs the American people money. Republicans need to stand strong on this.

I sent my Congressman a letter. I told Sean Duffy that I was on board for tax hikes so long as the REAL spending cuts were AT LEAST 4 times the tax hikes AND the tax hikes were APPLIED across the board. That’s my balanced approach Dear Dictator Obama.

I’d guess that a large chunk, maybe even a majority, of the 96% that say spending cuts should be part of the mix think that that means an actual decrease in the year-over-year budget. But they’ve been “sold” otherwise.

There’s an interesting story over at CNBC right now. Maybe Obama should follow J.F.K:

“Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other…It is increasingly clear that…an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits</strong

It is an accepted axiom that you tax activity you want to discourage and subsidize activity you want to encourage. Thus, the progressive tax system encourages sloth and punishes work for it increases the rate of taxation as one works more, and decreases the rate as one works less.

Thus, the most productive citizens, a small minority – derisively referred to as the “rich” – pay 80% of all federal income taxes, while the lesser productive citizens – the majority now – pay nothing. Yet, because there are so many more lesser productive people in any society, even a small increase in their rate would yield a huge net increase in revenue.

Ideally, however, the system would decrease rates as income levels rise, starting with a rate of about 25% for the lowest earners – namely the majority of Americans. That will encourage them to work more, or in some way, become more productive so that they can rise to a higher income bracket and thus a lower rate. And if they don’t, then there is your huge pot of money. If they do, then you will need to spend that much less on entitlements and the social safety net. Either way, the debt problem is solved. The lowest earners in society are also those who consume the most social services and thus the most tax dollars. Anyone who has seen Cops already knows this.

The progressive tax system is actually regressive. It goes against what we already know about human behavior and how to manipulate it. If greater work and greater earnings is something that a society values, and we say we do, then it should follow that said society should reward that by taxing increasing work with decreasing rates. Yet we do the opposite. And if low income is something we deride, then said society should punish that with increasing rates of taxation. Yet we do the opposite.

56.2 mpg by 2020, not 56, not 57. These super math geniuses are so good they can calculate a number like that to the tenth. Stellar isn’t it? We are truly being well served by these ivy league college kids. /s

barry is a deeply partisan m…has never had to deal with people that disagree with him, and views them as distasteful.

But there is a big picture here…and if the party of stupid can get its act together before Sunday, they might trying pointing out today’s econ numbers. Consumer Confidence down sharply, Industrial output less that expected, NY region manufacturing shrinking

They might point out that we have high unemployment…slow gdp…and people lowering their gdp forecasts for the second half. And they might point out that barry himself can only generate about 41B of taxes to go up…the deficit is 1.5T. he is not a serious economic person…he is a demagogue who is trying to disillusion R voters so the Dims can win in 12…and yes, he will demagogue right to the last minute.

They have to learn to face down the anchors when they start pounding the table for more taxes.

This burning, almost debilitating anger and disgust with Duh Won is like nothing I ever felt for Carter (for him it was mostly pity). Is this what the liberals felt for Bush…but without the vindication?

Regarding the tax increases, the Republican Party is going to have to ask themselves if they’d rather satisfy the pollsters or would they rather satisfy the people who vote for them in elections? They can’t do both.

You are really here trying to sell this sh!t sandwich to us?This is the kind of stupidity that only impresses those already smelling Obama’s farts. And it almost smacks of desperation. Maybe when Cantor points out his fake poll number is really only 76% he can walk out of the meeting in a huff.

So where’s GOP support for taxing the untaxed? I don’t hear anyone making that argument today.

bayam on July 15, 2011 at 2:24 PM

Fine. I’m not an elected official, but I strongly believe that.

Everyone shall pay the feds 10% regardless of how much or how little income they have.

If the feds can’t support their exhaustive programs using that amount, they cut the programs. If people still want the programs they can be done at the state level, and the states can tax as much or as little as they want to either fund said programs or make a jobs-friendly environment.

56.2 mpg by 2020, not 56, not 57. These super math geniuses are so good they can calculate a number like that to the tenth. Stellar isn’t it? We are truly being well served by these ivy league college kids. /s

DanMan on July 15, 2011 at 2:30 PM

Good point: if Obama is going to adopt Fidel Castro’s and Saddam Hussein’s tactics he should at least try to do it correctly.

FloatingRock on July 15, 2011 at 2:31 PM

When you here a number like that you just know that it was just made up out of thin air.

Now perhaps he delivered it without a hint of emotion or remorse – which should really when the investigation into his wrongdoings finds him hooked up to a polygraph – but the number itself is quite suspect.

Maybe the WH needs a fake number czar with a salary of $142,326 a year.

Obama has fallen very clearly out of step with the American public on spending and taxes, and the 80% remark just demonstrates his cluelessness.

80% if the people in his universe believe this. He hasn’t traveled much outside those boundaries so to him that’s a truism. Anyhoo, didn’t he say something to the effect that he doesn’t read everything today in his presser? Unless polls favor him they probably go in the icky pile and don’t get his attention.

The problem is that almost if not at least half the people polled in the sample don’t pay taxes now, if it was representative of the population as a whole.

I would bet the ranch that if you polled those who actually do pay taxes, more than 95% would say “hell no” to any income tax increases, even if most of them weren’t in the targeted group of those making more than $250K/yr.

You are not alone. I question myself sometimes, but honestly? I cannot recall any US President from Carter through Bush that I loathed. Carter was a doofus but he loved our Country. Obama? I think he is sinister.

This Orwellian nitwit chanting “revenues, revenues, revenues” — is he somehow unaware that they only people who don’t know he wants huge tax increases (as we have predicted since before he was elected) are the imbeciles who already vote for him?